A Bump in the Road
by Elessar-4-TnT
Summary: Jate. Missing scene from 'Through the Looking Glass, Part II'. Starts canon, goes AU. There may be a sequel... sets of missing scenes. My first Lost fic. I normally write Star Trek Enterprise Trip and T'Pol ff at TriaxianSilk.


Notes:

This is a "missing scene" type of story from 3x23 – Through the Looking Glass, Part II. It begins with some dialog between Jack and Kate while leading the survivors to the radio tower, to remind the reader of the circumstances.

* * *

Mile after mile of foliage passed by while Jack's mind wandered. The sun broke through the canopy briefly, prompting an upward glance and a squint. The hole in the canopy lingered as he kept marching, bringing a welcomed beam of warmth to dry the sweat gluing the blue cotton t-shirt to his chest.

He had fallen back to the rear of the troop of survivors to check on the progress of some of the stragglers. The heat was sorely affecting the elderly survivors, and their pace was slacking. They would have to rest soon, but Shepard was fearful of further delays. Charlie would have the beacon down any minute now and he was not eager to have Ben out here in the open, surrounded by those he could manipulate, a second longer than necessary. He jaunted a few steps, deciding to return to the head of the group. They would expect him to be leading them from the front…

He missed a step.

A familiar face came into view as Jack rounded a bend in the path. Kate sat with one leg propped up on a log, emptying her shoe. Before thinking, a smirk crept into the outer edges of Jack's lips and glowed, however briefly, before he could eradicate the "Wow, she's beautiful," look on his face. He nonchalantly approached, feigning apathy.

"You okay?"

Kate's eyes met his for a moment – or three. He wondered if she had seen the goofy grin on his face, but if she had, she wasn't showing it. For precisely one second longer, she answered him silently before turning back to the offending shoe.

"Oh I just… I got a rock in my shoe," Kate said, pulling her hair from her eyes.

Nodding, Shepard turned an eye on his flock, whose numbers were dwindling. The stragglers had caught up, and few eyes or ears were nearby. Something inexplicable prompted him to wait for her while she tied her shoes. Springing unbidden from the recessed memories of junior high, Jack recalled similarly finicky, anxious behavior from his fifteen year old antecedent, leaning against a locker, trying to find a way to ask out a girl—catching Kate's glance, Jack took a knee.

"He didn't mean it, ya know."

Digging at the laces of her tennis shoe, Kate played dumb while she groped for a response.

"What?" was all she could muster on short notice.

"When he said he didn't want you to go with him, he didn't mean it," Jack said of Sawyer.

"If he didn't mean it, why'd he say it?" Kate asked, irritably.

Jack pursed his lips, dissecting the paths that this conversation could take. He had no interest in talking about Sawyer, but it was the opportunity he had been looking for to tell her what she needed to hear. To say what _he_ needed to—

The summons of Kate's gaze drew Jack's attention back to her. Shaking his head, he sighed.

"He was just tryin' to protect you. That's why I asked you not to come back for me," he reminded her. Kate blinked through the pain of the memory of Jack's screaming, pleading voice over the walkie, demanding that she leave and never come back. The echo of that voice still pushed buttons inside her far more destructive than an electromagnetic standpipe valve. The words lacerated her insides, came out in her ears this time like the screams of death, sounding like her own hysterical sobs when the Others nearly executed Sawyer right in front of her. The shockwave of those words from Jack had damaged her – changed her – just as irrevocably and irreparably as the strange, clairvoyance-inducing effects Desmond had suffered.

Losing his nerve, Jack took a breath and steadied himself on his knees. He stood and started to walk away. Before he got far, Kate was on her feet.

"Hey!" she called lightly. Jack turned. Her lips broke into a smile as she fished, her eyes finding the dirt while she took a step towards him.

"Why you stickin' up for Sawyer?" she asked, shaking her head slightly in befuddlement. She hated how much better of a man Jack was than Sawyer sometimes – hated it because of what it forced her to see in her feelings for Sawyer – the very same misplaced, beaten-puppy love that her mother threw the way of the stinking drunk that dared sleep in her father's bed.

"He'd never do it for you," she pleaded.

She waited, biting her lip, a part of her wishing for just an instant that Jack could possess that initiative-taking, territorially dominant male gene that Sawyer's genetic makeup seemed to be choking on. Unfortunately, Jack's was sometimes starving of it, at least when she wanted it from him. When she _needed it _from him. Was it a crime to want him to come after her? To wish he would—

Jack smirked and turned his head, spying an empty path behind them. They were alone at last. He turned back to her decisively, blinking calmly.

"Because I love you."

Frozen, paralyzed by a barrage of emotions, of regrets, of yearnings, Kate stared at Jack, feeling her eyes begin to water. She scrunched up her nose to hide the tears, but her dirt-streaked cheeks already bore the evidence of a single, salty streamer passing from the inside edge of one eyelid down the curve of her nose and onto her lip. She licked her lips, her hand going up to her forehead briefly in panic, busying itself with the alignment of a stray strand of hair.

Jack turned to walk away.

"Hey!" she called after him. He ignored her as she jogged up to him, injecting herself into his path.

"You can't just say something like that and walk away!" She cocked her head, finding her toes had carried her closer to him. She looked up at him and watched as his eyes searched the horizon.

"Why do you care, Kate?" The words were meant to be sincere, genuine – he had seen her lying in Sawyer's arms, watched her refuse to leave his side, heard her desperate cries for mercy when the Others were about to execute him. It was Sawyer she wanted, of that he was certain – but what came out in his voice bore more resemblance to the sharp edge of resentment than anything else. Kate squinted briefly in pain at his words. He spoke up again before she could interject.

"You love Sawyer," Jack said, controlling his voice into a low sooth, his head shaking slightly. Kate's face became rigid and her eyes locked with his. She pressed her lips tightly closed and shook her head, her eyes falling in shame to the dirt.

"No," she said, almost sobbing the word out. "I just…" her voice faltered as she tried to confess the unpleasant truth of her misleading attentions to Sawyer.

"I just didn't want them to kill him," she said finally. Ashamed that she had mislead Sawyer so convincingly, she thought about how he had been following her around like a puppy dog since they got back, asking her to stay the night, even cuddling at the first opportunity. He was in love with her, and it was her fault that he thought she reciprocated. She had managed to turn a misanthropic, commitment-phobic conman into a heartsick Romeo through a lie of omission. Through lying _with him_ in omission.

Jack shook his head.

"Kate, you've been stayin over in his tent, you… refused to leave his side when the Others shot him, you've jumped him in the middle of camp," Jack said, not aware of how his voice rose in anger with each successive point.

Kate held Jack's gaze and blinked hard a few times, groping for an explanation. Wondering if he was jealous, daring to think he might still... Before she could order her chaotic thoughts, Jack turned to walk away.

"I needed someone…" she replied quietly. Jack paused, turning around.

"And you were… taken," Kate motioned her eyes down the path and shrugged slightly. Jack's head cocked sideways as he thought about Juliet and suddenly realized what Kate was talking about.

"You think me and Juliet--?"

"I saw her kiss you, Jack, and I saw you kiss her back. Listen," she paused, holding back as long as she could the fierce urgency building in her to move away fast. "You don't need to explain anything to me it's—" she put up her hands in defense and began retreating.

"Wait," Jack said, taking her arm. "You saw me kiss her back," he whispered, conceding the point. Kate frowned, unsure how that was supposed to comfort her.

"But I saw you kiss Sawyer or hold Sawyer, or look at Sawyer how many times? And you wanna tell me that didn't mean anything, but the one kiss with Juliet did?" he stopped and looked around.

"Maybe I just… didn't think you were available either," Jack said, a half-smile creeping onto his lips. Taken aback, Kate blinked, watching as Jack slowly, and deliberately moved closer to her.

His hand rose up to touch her face, but she caught his fingers in hers halfway between them, intertwining them. Less than an inch separated their lips, her hands traveled up his arms, sliding up his shoulders and taking him by the neck. The air between them hummed with electricity as Kate paused, looking at Jack's lips, then in his eyes, recalling the first time she kissed him. She swore not to make the same mistake again and retreat into a confusing lovelorn purgatory with Sawyer; consigning the will of her lips to the magnetism drawing them to Jack when—

"Whoa!"

Someone shouted, and a thud broke the two apart. Kate suddenly became colder as Jack took his hands off her; for the first time becoming aware that her breath was coming in short bursts, adrenaline shaking her fingers. Jack, suffering the same withdrawal, appeared to be hiding it better when Kate looked up and found him seemingly collected. He was helping Hurley up.

"You alright, Hurley?" he asked. Spilled supplies and left over whip cream rations with DHARMA painted all over their freeze-dried packaging littered the dirt.

"Yeah'm alright man, just… tripped over a root. Sorry I… interrupted," Hurley apologized, shrugging. Jack shrugged exhaustively, cocking his head to look at Kate…

Who was gone.


End file.
